The Parliamentary Budget Office Review 2016–17 — Report of the Independent Review Panel (the PBO review) reported that there is a lack of understanding of the factors that determine how long it takes the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) to complete a costing and of the principles that the PBO uses to determine the relative priority of requests we receive. It recommended that the PBO should, in consultation with political parties and individual parliamentarians, develop and publish the principles used to prioritise costing requests to provide greater transparency around the PBO’s processes.

This consultation paper provides information on the costing process, the factors that affect the time it takes for the PBO to respond to costing requests and the framework that the PBO applies to prioritise competing demands for costing resources. It seeks feedback from parliamentarians and their staff, as well as other interested stakeholders, on these matters.

The PBO will consider feedback from this consultation process and will publish an information paper in early 2018 that provides transparency on these processes.